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318 Theology and Evidences of Christianity," "The True Idea of the Holy See," and "Feijoo" (a Catholic writer who tried to reason away many of the superstitious observances of the Church, and came very near falling into the hands of the Inquisition for so doing). This completed that eminently religious and raisonneé education which had come to him from the cradle, transmitted from his mother to the schoolmaster, from his mentor Oro to the Presbyter Albarracin.

"At sixteen I entered prison, and came out of it with political opinions diametrically opposed to those of Silvio Pellico, to whom prisons taught the moral of resignation and self-annihilation. From the time 'My Prisons' fell into my hands, I was inspired with a horror of that doctrine of moral discouragement which it went forth to preach through the world, and which was so acceptable to kings, who felt that they were threatened by the energy of their people. How would the human race have advanced, if in order to comprehend the interests of their country, men needed to have spiritual exercises in the dungeons of Spielberg, the Bastille, and Santos Lugares? Woe to the world if the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, or the tyrant Rosas could teach morality to mankind! Silvio Pellico's book is the death of the soul, the morality of dungeons, the slow poison of degradation of mind. He and his book have happily passed away, and the world has gone on in spite of the cripples, paralytics, and valetudinarians whom political struggles have left.

"I was a shopkeeper by profession in 1827, and I do not remember whether I was also Cicero, Franklin, or Themistocles (it depends upon what book I was reading at the